Posted on 01/27/2007 8:55:29 AM PST by spintreebob
Former congressional candidate Vernon Robinson sounds resigned, and more than a little tired, when you ask him to explain his defeat. "The 2006 election was not a referendum on immigration," he says. "I would have liked it to be, but it didn't happen."
That's an understatement. In the tumultuous political year of 2006, Robinson, a former city councilman from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, became one of the country's most notorious voices for a crackdown on illegal immigration. In March, as the Republican-led House of Representatives wrestled with a harsh reform bill that would build a wall on the border and classify crossers as felons, Robinson's campaign launched a TV ad that opened with the theme from The Twilight Zone and Rod Serling-style narration: "If you're a conservative Republican, watching the news these days can make you feel as though you're in the Twilight Zone....The aliens are here, but they didn't come in a spaceship. They came across our unguarded Mexican border by the millions."
The ad was a sensation. For everyone who saw it in North Carolina's 13th District, where Robinson was challenging Democratic Rep. Brad Miller, dozens more saw it on YouTube and on blogs that trafficked the ad across the Web. "This is tough," Hardball host Chris Matthews swooned, re-running the ad on his MSNBC chat fest. "It's strong, it makes fun of the other side viciously, but I remember it. I'm going to remember this ad."
Robinson, who had already alienated Republican allies like Jack Kemp with his approach to immigration, issued more commercials blasting the Democrat for voting against a border wall or a cutoff on benefits for undocumented workers. One radio ad set Miller-bashing lyrics to the Beverly Hillbillies theme ("Come and hear me tell about a politician named Brad. He gave illegal aliens everything we had!"). The Democrats were spooked, even before the influential political magazine Congressional Quarterly pondered the tone of the campaign and increased its odds for a Robinson upset.
"Both myself and my opponent thought it was going to be a photo finish," Robinson remembers. "He wouldn't have stood in rain for two hours on Election Day if he thought it wouldn't be close."
If so, both men were wrong. The Democrat, who had won 59 percent of the vote in 2004, thumped the well-funded Robinson by 28 points. After a year in which the immigration issue inspired reform bills, citizen border patrols, mass marches of undocumented workers, and untold hours of talk show screaming, a candidate who had seemed to strike a hidden chord with voters lost in a rout.
It's not a new thing for the media to misread the mood of the country on a hot issue. But the crumbling of the immigration backlash was almost without precedent. Poll after poll showed voters angry about the influx of Mexican workers and willing to do almost anything to stop it. A much-cited April survey by Rasmussen Reports showed a whopping 30 percent of voters ready to elect a third-party presidential candidate who "promised to build a barrier along the Mexican border and make enforcement of immigration law his top priority." Politicians, who like to pretend they ignore the polls and lead with their guts, were clearly sweating that datum.
In April, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean declared that Republicans would wield the immigration issue the way "they used gay marriage" in 2004-tossing a banana peel on the floor and waiting for Democrats to walk on by. Lo and behold, the GOP did. Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum papered the state with stickers announcing Democrat Bob Casey's support for immigrant amnesty: "13 Million Illegal Aliens Are Counting on Him." He also campaigned with the mayor of Hazelton, who was pushing a town law that would fine landlords or employers who dealt with illegal immigrants.
Casey drubbed Santorum by 18 points. In Luzerne County, where Hazelton is located, he beat him by 21 points. But that result didn't shock like the fate of Arizona's J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf. Hayworth, who'd opposed a harsh immigration state ballot measure in 2004, entered the campaign with the publication of an anti-immigration book called Whatever It Takes. Readers who flipped past the cover photo of Hayworth hanging tough in front of the border fence got to read the congressman's thoughts on dispatching troops to the country's southern flank and quashing Mexico's secret desire to reconquer the Southwest.
Graf, who was running for the seat of immigration moderate (and fellow Republican) Jim Kolbe, got financial support from the border-patrolling Minuteman project. Both men lost congressional seats in districts that had twice voted for George W. Bush.
Those losses, lined up next to each other like evidence at a trial, look like they debunk the immigration hype. But it's no use getting a Republican to admit that the issue didn't go the hard-liners' way. It wasn't that voters didn't want to close the border, the hard-liners assert, it was that voters who wanted to do that were distracted by anger over the war in Iraq and other issues, and voted for Democrats anyway.
"Immigration was a winning issue," says National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Ed Petru. "You wouldn't have seen so many ads on it if our candidates weren't on the winning side of the immigration issue. It helped stress the contrast between our candidates and the Democrats who favored amnesty. But having a winning issue is not the same as having an issue that can compensate for all the disadvantages our candidates had this cycle."
You'll hear the same tune from the candidates themselves. "The Democrats did a good job of nationalizing the war in Iraq and national sentiment against Congress," says Graf. "The sixth year of a presidency is historically not a good year for the party in the majority. We had a late primary and an eight-week general election. Between that and the party unity I didn't have on my side, it was just not going to go our way."
In other words, the hard-liners have a bucket of red herrings. Epochal issues can change an electorate's mood or historical patterns; eight years ago, anger over the drawn-out impeachment of Bill Clinton inspired voters to add more Democrats to Congress, despite the "rule" of the sixth-year slump. If a serious border crackdown and a Mexican Wall were really burning up American passions, they would have moved voters to action.
Some hard-liners argue they were moved. "The same voters who opposed Graf and Hayworth overwhelmingly approved four get-tough ballot measures," says Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and a border hawk.
But those referenda didn't comport with the hard-line approach. One made English the official language of Arizona, a measure beloved not just by the anti-immigration crowd but by many pro-immigration pundits who think it will encourage assimilation. The other three initiatives cut off free social services for noncitizens, more in line with the harshness hard-liners expected from voters but a far cry from the "kick 'em out, build a wall" attitude they claimed to be riding to victory.
The idea that Americans might be more compassionate about immigrants than they let on is a tough one for hard-liners to comprehend. Most Americans, though eager to exercise some control over the border, don't see their would-be fellow citizens as a menace. Immigration hawks who look at those huddled masses and choose to see an ugly threat will keep getting the same results they got this year. They'll lose.
Ping!
"If the GOP continues its lurch to the far right, all is lost."
Refusing to pardon border patrol agents, opening the border, running deficits to record levels, widespread corruption and earmarks. Yeah, that REALLY looks like a lurch to the right. /sarcasm off
That is not the whole truth and is thus not the truth.
The NRCC TV ads said immigrant/immigration without the adjective illegal. Here on FR and many other internet sites, both R and not R, many antis repeatedly refer to immigration/immigrants and Mexicans and Fox and other things without connecting it to illegeal.
Hannity will say immigration 100 times in 3 hours and only once use the adjective illegal. The antis are the communication problem here. They are incompetent at PR.
I know, just look at those referendums they passed.
Says the man who thinks the republican party voters are evenly split 50-50 on immigration.
I'm not 100% sure about America as a whole, but if you had a national referendum on immigration with just registered republicans voting, it wouldn't even be close. Don't kid yourself (it's obvious from your homepage why you "love illegals").
Oh and Dane, the senate passed a liberal immigration bill with a republican majority and the republicans still lost six seats out of a hundred and lost the majority. Yet all I hear is crickets from you about that. As someone already posted, if Bush had been directly on the ballot, he would have been massacred. This election had nothing to do with immigration, like the article said. Which means that people didn't throw out Abramoff-tainted J.D. Hayworth in the same state where numerous anti-illegal referendums passed. It had nothing to do with illegal immigration and everything to do with Iraq, scandals and the overall distaste for Bush.
The advantage of a good guest worker program is that it puts the work out in the spotlight. No more below-cost labor, not skipping taxes, no hiding in the shadows.
The jobs have to be advertised, so any american can bid on them. In the Senate plan, the jobs had to pay Davis-Bacon wages, which are higher than minimum wage. But in any plan the jobs would have to meet federal and state wage laws. The workers would be covered by workman's comp, and because the workers couldn't hide, the employers couldn't threaten them with "outing" to make them work cheap.
By forcing them out of the shadows, we can make them leave when the work is done (BTW, a lot more used to leave when the work was done, but all the "compassionate" crap about educting their kids and stuff gave them incentive to stick around, and then the increased border security, without any other changes, made is so that, once they made it in the country, they were NEVER going to leave because it would be too hard to get back again (I am for border security).
Again, if you think over half the country agrees with the statement that "all we need to do is enforce current laws", you are mistaken. People DO support "enforcing current laws", but majorities also support changing those laws, especially in the areas of forcing english as our official language, a guest worker program, and a path to citizenship for illegals who have been in the country for years and have assimilated.
A majority also wants increased border security, which goes beyong current law, so it's not just people want more liberal laws, they want a real solution to the problem.
" People DO support "enforcing current laws", but majorities also support changing those laws, especially in the areas of forcing english as our official language, a guest worker program, and a path to citizenship for illegals who have been in the country for years and have assimilated. "
We shall see.
"A majority also wants increased border security, which goes beyong current law, so it's not just people want more liberal laws, they want a real solution to the problem."
The President's solution will just make it worse.
Then explain it. Put together a coherent explanation of what WILL be better for our country. Send it to every major newspaper as a letter-to-the-editor. Get your hometown paper to give you a guest column. Send it to your congressman and senators.
Post it here to try to win over the smart conservatives who don't agree with you now.
You can have a brilliant plan, but if you are too smug to do anything more than call people names if they don't agree with you, and can't argue better than saying a majority must agree with you or else they are stupid, you aren't contributing to the solution.
THe pro-amnesty folks aren't the ones arguing on FR. At least not in the threads I'm frequenting. I guess my position is closer to theirs so I don't see the namecalling from that side.
Anyway, it wasn't a criticism of you. Feel free to be smug all you want, or take any approach you want. I'm telling you what I think you need to do if you really care about your position and think it is the one that will save our country. I should think you'd be happy if I didn't tell the pro-amnesty folks how to win, because you want them to lose.
Your "plan" doesn't explain what you are going to do with the millions of long-term illegals who are settled into this country. You say let's "enforce the laws" which suggests you want to send police out to round them up and deport them all. We all know that is impossible -- most argue that we should focus on punishing the employers, which would remove the reason for being here, so the illegals would leave.
Let me help. You have stated platitudes. Here is what a plan would look like:
My plan to end the illegal immigration policy has the goal of not allowing a single current illegal immigrant to EVER be allowed back into the country. To do that, I have to do two things: FIRST, I need to get rid of every illegal immigrant. SECOND (and here's the hard part) I have to get the identification of every illegal so I can identify them when they apply for legal entry.
To do the first, I will enforce all existing laws against illegals. We will increase the penalties on companies, so that when we DO catch them, they will be put out of business. We will institute a national ID card for every legal person, and require all people here legally to obtain this card within 6 months of adoption, or face jail time.
With a national id card, we can require every employer to check the id, and report the use of the id to the new office of illegal removal. All uses of the id will be reported to the valid holder to ensure it hasn't been stolen. Without an ID you cannot buy any items, work, OR ship money overseas. In short, without the national ID living in this country in any manner other than as a homeless fugitive will be impossible.
To handle number 2, we will close the border, using 100,000 troops. The illegals have to get out of the country because they can't live here, and we will catch them on the way out (or if they try to buy their family food). We will fingerprint every one, and then let them cross the border.
We also will pass a constitutional amendment making it illegal for the children of illegal immigrants to attend our schools, or to get citizenship simply by being born in the country.
OK, that's a plan. It needs work, but it defines the goals and how to get there. It is a plan that will be supported by no more than 20% of the population, and you will never get elected. Your next step would be to explain why your goals are preferable to the goals of your opponent.
And I recommend that when you PUBLISH your goals, don't include the part about not wanting 50 million more "democrat voters" -- half the country will reject your plan on that basis alone.
LAst thing. Sooner or later, you are going to have a police team show up in a nice middle-class neighborhood. They are going to surround the house in the middle of the street, the one with two cars and a nicely maintained yard. There is a nice couple there, with 3 kids, one preparing for college. They've owned the house for the last 10 years. The guy is the head of the HOA, and also is the scoutmaster. They are strongly involved in the local Catholic church, she teaches sunday school and he's on the board of deacons (or whatever Catholics call that). Their two youngest attend the local catholic school, but the high-school boy is a starting running back for the football team, a member of the honor society, and won 3rd place last year in the county science fair.
The teen daughter is also in the local drama club, and starred in their presentation of Jack and the Beanstalk last year. They are friends with everyone on the street. He runs a local video store, and employs 8 hardworking american citizens.
The mother volunteers at the local Crisis Pregnancy Center, and also does stints at the library and other community organizations.
They speak perfect english, and nobody really has a clue that they are actually here in this country illegally. Their two younger children were born in the local hospital, and are actually U.S. citizens under current law.
The one parent is from Mexico, and the other from El Salvador -- they met here in the United States.
This causes some trouble. We can't deport them all to either country, as neither country will take the other parent. Neither country really wants the american citizens either. The two have NO family in either country of origin, no place to live, no place to go to.
The youngest children DON'T SPEAK SPANISH, and the oldest is better at French (the language he learned in school) than his supposedly "native" tongue which he hasn't spoken since he was 5 years old.
Of course, the news gets a hold of this, and these people are on the front page of the paper, and on national news. They are the quintescential "american" family, except our government (because of the republicans) is about to send them to a country that is foreign to them, where their lives will be over. 8 americans will be out of work, a community will be torn.
Your plan for these people is simple -- even though they have paid their taxes, learned our language, and assimilated into our society, you must kick them out -- no exceptions. There are other people waiting in line that you would much rather have in the country than these people.
Of course, they did break the law (well, not the kids really, they just had law-breaking parents, but we should visit the sins of the parents on the children).
Your position is legally justified. As a law-and-order guy, I might even agree with you. But we'll be in a small company. You have NO argument (at least none you have presented) that will prevail against the onslaught.
If your plan doesn't have a way for this family to stay in this country, you better explain why people like this need to have their lives destroyed, meaning you better explain the ACTUAL HARM they have caused to society. Because nobody will see these people as "law-breakers". Sure, they came into the country illegally, but they haven't cost us anything, instead they have contributed in a positive way. (Yes, they cost government money like all people living do, but no more so than any other person -- not like the standard argument of "illegals not paying taxes and stealing our jobs).
See, with 20 million illegals in the country, most americans know an illegal like this, at least most who belong to churches. In many cases, the churches have been helping these people. But in any case, they are like "family" to others. THESE are the families, (few in percent, but not in number) that cause a vast majority of americans to FAVOR a way for long-term illegals to get into the line for legal status without being thrown out of the country, IF a preliminary investigation suggests they are exactly the kind of people we WOULD let emmigrate, if not for their one crime of not coming into the country legally.
BTW, just to make it clear. When I was a child I used to cut through people's back yards. Technically, what I did was illegal, but I didn't harm anything. Sometimes I might stop and ride a swingset, or play with the army men. Maybe once or twice I actually stepped on a flower, or tore up the new grass, I'm not sure.
"The NRCC TV ads said immigrant/immigration without the adjective illegal. Here on FR and many other internet sites, both R and not R, many antis repeatedly refer to immigration/immigrants and Mexicans and Fox and other things without connecting it to illegeal."
In the absence of the adjective "ILLEGAL" it sounds racist and bigotted to someone on the outside looking in.....someone seriously needs to page Karl Rove about this...but I suspect this is to corporate America's interest that it appear this way....
One would think Mel Martinez and Bush hired this guy to write this propaganda.
http://numbersusa.com/interests/publicop.html#amnesty
Maybe you should review some of the polls.
"In short, we are tired of you."
You have said it very eloquently. There seems to be more moderates nowdays than conservatives on this "conservative" website.
Regarding Tancredo, don't forget that he is in favor of the Real ID Act of 2008.
"You have said it very eloquently. There seems to be more moderates nowdays than conservatives on this "conservative" website."
That's the problem with the GOP nowadays sadly.
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